Jump to content

Get yourself a Jag and f*ck Ryanair...


theduisbergkid
 Share

Recommended Posts

getyourselfajagandfckryanair.jpg?t=1295281434

Considering the quality of the content on s2b2, it will come as no surprise to you that we don’t get paid for writing it. Dr Octane isn’t a real Doctor and I’m not a real German rentboy. We do have day jobs. In order to keep the Halifax from the door, my job often takes me to various places in continental Europe, and as I’m self-employed I am often economically obliged to suffer Ryanair. When a recent meeting in Norway came up, I just couldn’t face giving that smarmy, grinning tit O’Leary at Ryanair any more of my hard-earned. The guy I was destined to meet had grumbled about the high cost of spares for his XJ6 up in Norway and I had a brainwave… One EBay session later and I was collecting a deep red ’96 3.2 XJ6 from a Pirate Radio DJ in Grantham. He even left a Meatloaf tape in the car. What he didn’t leave was much fuel, any tread on the tyres, or any life in the suspension. The alarm was also suffering from epiltectrics, causing the alarm to freak out at random times. Like 2am. And 3am. Outside my house. Still, for the price of an XJ6 aircon pump in Norway, we had got a complete car my Viking mate could cannibalise. And a quality transport alternative to Ryanair.

1.jpg

Norway doesn’t look that far away on a map, and you can (if you don’t get violently seasick, like me), take a ferry from Immingham. However, after a 6am start, TomTom told me it was only a thousand miles or so to drive there instead. The first week of January should be quiet on the roads, and the weather forecast didn’t look that bad. Scrawny Luke and Mr Tipex had decided to join Dr Octane and I as there was plenty of room in the Jag. I’d told them all kinds of lies about promiscuous Scandiwegian women and cheap booze, but the real reason for inviting them was that I couldn’t afford breakdown cover and I’m not strong enough to push a 2.2 ton Jag on my own.

32.jpg

Southern England and France were despatched in no time (Eurotunnel beats bi-curious SeaFrance sailors anyday), but in Belgium we had to stop for fuel. Already. €106 of the bloody stuff. I had chronically underestimated the Jag’s fuel consumption, thinking that with the cruise set at 1.1 leptons, we could waft economically across the continent, looking down our noses at the budget airline plebs. Not so. I had also chronically underestimated the amount of booze and junk food my passengers could consume, the classy old-school wood and leather interior quickly resembling a living room on Shameless. We left Belgium quicker than a disgraced Catholic priest, entered Holland and then into Germany. We sadly didn’t have time to sample the delights of the bordertown of ****um, tempted as we were.

41.jpg

51.jpg

The Autobahn was clear and dry and a great place to stretch the Jag’s legs. It drove beautifully up to 50 mph, and at anything over 100 mph, but at anything in-between it had a disconcerting rhythmical vibration. And now, the obligatory Jag clichés : Purring engine, feline ride, gentlemen’s club interior, old school money, relaxed J-gate ‘box, Arthur Daley, shotgun in the boot and pharmaceuticals in the glovebox. It was getting dark now, and a bit snowy, so we drove faster aiming to reach a pub before last orders. The last time something from Brown’s Lane crossed the Ruhr valley at these speeds, it was being pursued by Messerschmitts. The snow started to fall. Faster, pussycat ! We made it as far as the Etap Hotel in Flensburg, a nice old harbour town on the border between Germany and Denmark, with the snow falling heavily we decided to see how much beer, sausage, sauerkraut and aquavit it would take to make ourselves sick the following morning. Quite a lot, as it turns out.

7.jpg

Hangovers were the least of our worries in the morning. A huge snowfall had covered everything, including the Jag, which had been abandoned in a bike park the night before. I was worried about my poor passengers getting cold dannies, so kindly agreed to let them sit on their fat arses in the warm car listening to MC Hammer eating Murray mints whilst I froze my bastard fingers off de-icing 3 square kilometres of Jag glass. Getting out of Flensburg was a nightmare. Narrow hilly roads, huge amounts of snow, and a Jag doing its best to turn around if I so much as brushed the go pedal with the frozen stump that used to be my foot. We refuelled and unfroze the single wiper. Again. The Motorway in Denmark was down to one lane and we passed numerous crashes. I hadn’t bothered with Winter tyres, despite reading about their seemingly miraculous virtues on Pistonheads. I had 3 hungover mates to help with if we got stuck, although Luke’s hand-stitched pointy leather shoes looked more at home in Soho than Oslo. We had a midday appointment with the Ferry in Hirtshals at the top of Denmark, so had to press on. As the weather got even worse we stopped to invest in a new wiper blade, having driven with ‘burqa vision’ for the last few miles. Mr Tipex kindly offered to drive for a bit as Dr Octane ‘doesn’t do autos’, the poof, and Luke was getting some beauty sleep in the back. I snoozed off in the passenger seat, safe in the hands of a guy I’d known on the trackday and roadtrip circuit for many years, a cabbie with a million miles under his belt, a steady hand. I awoke to the screams of my fellow passengers, and frantically tried to focus my bleary eyes on the Danish Armco whizzing by, millimetres from my window. The car had dug in on one side at speed, Tipex was gingerly trying to heave it straight and not clip the HGV on our inside. I would have binned it for sure. He didn’t.

61.jpg

The Ferry from Denmark to Norway takes c.4 hours and costs c.€50. It is friendly, clean, and reliable (O’Leary, take note). The Jag safely lashed down we retired to the lounge and I explained Norway’s draconian Customs, Police and driving laws. Zero alcohol tolerance and jail for anyone over the limit. Illegal to drive on summer tyres in Winter. It was a white out when we docked in Larvik. The Ferry’s off-ramp was downhill, so I knew we could at least hit Norway before getting stuck/killed/arrested. I followed a dodgy looking Polish Merc through customs, knowing he would get stopped, and he did. We got safely waved through with a smile. There’s a hint of obscure minor Royal about this Jag in the right colour, it is one of those rare cars everyone seems to like, I’m sure that helped. So, we got as far as the carpark, the Jag refused to move any more. Luckily my local contact (Bjørn) had correctly predicted the weather, met us with a set of winter tyres, a trolley jack and a look in his eye that said ‘You drove here ? You daft bastards’. Even on the winter tyres, the XJ6 was very very sideways, it wasn’t fun anymore, thankfully we didn’t have to take it far. The sea was frozen, it was snowing like crazy and Meatloaf was wearing thin. A short see-saw up the E18 and we reached our destination, a run up required to get enough momentum to slither up a steep track and through the doors of Bjørn’s garage. The remaining booze being necked as we admired his Corvette, classic Cortina and Anglia and an XJ6 requiring an aircon pump transplant.

9.jpg

8.jpg

13.jpg

A night on the lash in the pleasant town of Tønsberg (while a blizzard raged outside) gave us time to reflect on the Jag. On these roadtrips we often form an emotional bond to charismatic cars like these, and I was rather sad to hand over the keys, although happy to get paid in full for the car and fuel. Thanks to the exorbitant cost of spares in Scandinavia, we had been able to do the entire journey across 7 countries, in air conditioned luxury, effectively for free. F*ck Ryanair ! Holding the folding, I realised that a grand doesn’t go far in a bar charging £7 for a pint of beer called ‘Aass’. And we still have to get home somehow…

14.jpg

The Pussycåt Dølls were – The Duisberg Kid and Dr Dårryl Øctåne, ‘Mønkeyfånny’ Tipex, Scråwny Luke. With kind thånks tø Påuline Edwårds trånspørt, Chårnwøød Åutøcåre, EurøJåg and Bjørn M.

Click my sig more more of the same....

Edited by theduisbergkid
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cracking little trip, that's the kind of crap I want to get up with some mates but never have the cash, organisation skills or pink slip to do it.

I have visions of the Tipex incident being something like that scene in planes, trains and automobiles where they go between the two lorries... :roflmao:

Edited by stooH
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tipex just kept his cool, gave it 5 degrees to starboard and didn't take his foot off the gas. I was doing a passable impression of Riverdance on imaginary pedals in the passenger seat.

Thanks for the comments +++

There's a cracking 'Nothing handles like a rental' adventure in the pipeline, if the bastard taxman has left me any money...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best thread I've read on here in months. Makes a refreshing change to read something amusing AND interesting, rather than than the usual 'dick swinging' threads that seem 10 a penny these days.

Much better than "I'm [buying/thinking of buying/been looking at/just bought] a [watch/another watch/helicopter/oil rig/two watches/small tropical island] and although I have [absolutely zero intention of taking anyones advice/not really interested in anyones comments] I'd just like to start a thread on it so everyone can see [how much disposable income I've got to spend/how successful I am/how I've nothing better to post than stuff about myself and £ signs]"

*Delete as applicable

Nice one TDK +++

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Best thread I've read on here in months. Makes a refreshing change to read something amusing AND interesting, rather than than the usual 'dick swinging' threads that seem 10 a penny these days.

Much better than "I'm [buying/thinking of buying/been looking at/just bought] a [watch/another watch/helicopter/oil rig/two watches/small tropical island] and although I have [absolutely zero intention of taking anyones advice/not really interested in anyones comments] I'd just like to start a thread on it so everyone can see [how much disposable income I've got to spend/how successful I am/how I've nothing better to post than stuff about myself and £ signs]"

*Delete as applicable

Nice one TDK +++

:roflmao:

So true, certain posters seem so far up their own arses they cant post a thread about anything without dropping in every designer name they can think of!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad top hear my MC Hammer got some good use!:roflmao:

As soon as we put the tape in, we got 'cant touch this', quality moment that.

Bet he calmly said after the said moment, 'mean't to do that' ;)

Naturally!

I was just completing my overtaking maneuver, don't know what all the fuss was about, made it past the artic no problem, if pointing slightly in the wrong direction.

I have visions of the Tipex incident being something like that scene in planes, trains and automobiles where they go between the two lorries... :roflmao:

Thats pretty much exactly it, in fact, if I grew a mustache, and rich dyed his hair grey (or stopped dying it :secret:) it would have been spot on!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:roflmao:

So true, certain posters seem so far up their own arses they cant post a thread about anything without dropping in every designer name they can think of!

I have to be honest, that's something that's never struck me about this site. Pistonheads is very good at it though.

Great write up Rich, very amusing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow ! Thanks for the nice comments everyone, genuinely appreciate this, as long as you lot enjoy reading it, I'll keep writing it. +++

Cruiser, 12.2 MPG at 110 MPH, as I recall. I've never known a car take so long to hit a ton, the vibrations were so bad up to a ton it felt like we were about to break the sound barrier. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cruiser, 12.2 MPG at 110 MPH, as I recall. I've never known a car take so long to hit a ton, the vibrations were so bad up to a ton it felt like we were about to break the sound barrier. :D

Hey, she was built for refinement, not speed!

I like the kick down on the auto box, floor the pedal, after a brief period of inactivity (measure in minutes) ,volume of engine increases for approx 2 seconds (if that), box changes back up again, approximately no increase in speed achieved.

If the car could speak, it be saying "thats enough of that now, show some decorum" in a fine old english gentleman's voice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...